"Every year, hundreds of those metallic helium balloons that some little
kid lets go of by accident, or some misguided romantic releases into the
sky like a shiny-bright dove, float up into electric lines and knock out
the power hundreds of times over. ... The Balloon Council, evidently full
of its own product, is yammering about how [the proposal to ban them]
criminalizes a toy."
Patt Morrison; More Hot Air From Lobbyists; Los Angeles Times; Apr 8, 2008.

X-Bonus

Be not too hasty to trust or admire the teachers of morality; they discourse
like angels but they live like men. -Samuel Johnson, lexicographer
(1709-1784)